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Interest of the Moravians
in
the Education of Negroes Reported, 1842
The Moravian or United Brethren were the first
who formally attempted the establishment of Missions,
exclusively to the Negroes.
A succinct account of their several efforts
down to the year 1790, is given in the report of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen, at Salem N. C.,
October 5th 1837; by Rev. J. Renatus Schmidt, and is as follows:
"A hundred years have now elapsed since
the Renewed Church of the Brethren first attempted to
communicate the Gospel to the many thousand Negroes of our land.
In 1737 Count Zinzendorf paid a visit to London, and formed an
acquaintance with General Oglethorpe and the Trustees of
Georgia, with whom he conferred on the subject of the mission to
the Indians, which the Brethren had already established in that
Colony, (in 1735.) Some of these gentlemen were associates under
the will of Dr. Bray, who had left funds to be devoted to the
conversion of the Negro slaves in South Carolina; and they
solicited the Count to procure them some missionaries for this
purpose.
On his objecting that the Church of England
might hesitate to recognize the ordination of the Brethren's
missionaries, they referred the question to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Potter, who gave it as his Opinion, 'that the
Brethren being members of an Episcopal Church whose doctrines
contained nothing repugnant to the Thirty-nine Articles, ought
not to be denied free access to the heathen.' This declaration
not only removed all hesitation from the minds of the trustees
as to the present application; but opened the way for the labors
of the Brethren amongst the slave population of the West
Indies;--a great and blessed work, which has, by the gracious
help of God, gone on increasing even to the present day.
"The same year Brother Peter Boehler was
deputed to commence the desired mission, with Brother George
Schulius as his assistant. They set out by way of London, in
February 1738, and repaired, in the first instance, to Georgia,
hoping to be provided with means for the prosecution of their
journey by the colony of the Brethren already established there.
Obstacles however being interposed, through the interested views
of certain individuals, this mission failed and our Brethren,
settling at Purisburg, took charge of the Swiss Colonists and
their children in that town; Georgia not being at that period a
slave-holding Colony.
In 1739, Schulius departed this life. Peter
Boehler emigrated in 1740, to Pennsylvania, with the whole
Georgia Colony, of which he was minister; because they were
required to bear arms, in the war against the Spaniards, which
had recently broken out. In 1747 and 1748 some Brethren
belonging to Bethlehem, undertook several long and difficult
journies through Maryland, Virginia, and the borders of North
Carolina, in order to preach the Gospel to the Negroes, who,
generally speaking, received it with eagerness. . . .
"At the request of Mr. Knox, the English
Secretary of State, an attempt was made to evangelise thc
Negroes of Georgia. In 1774 the brethren, Lewis Muller, of the
Academy at Niesky, and George Wagner, were called to North
America, and in the year following, having been joined by
brother Andrew Broesing of North Carolina, they took up their
abode at Knoxborough, a Plantation so called from its
proprietor, the gentleman above mentioned. They were however
almost constant sufferers from the fevers which prevailed in
those parts, and Muller finished his course in the October of
the same year. He had preached the Gospel with acceptance to
both whites and blacks, yet without any abiding results. The two
remaining brethren being called upon to bear arms on the
breaking out of the war of independence, Broesing repaired to
Wachovia, in North Carolina, and Wagner set out in 1779 for
England."
Charles C. Jones, The Religious Instruction
of the Negroes in the United States (Savannah: Thomas Purse,
1842), pp.30-34.
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The Legislature of Virginia
Provides for a Young Slave To Be Taught, 1842
Whereas, it appearing to the
general assembly that Henry Juett Gray, of the county of
Rockingham, a blind youth of reputable character and exemplary
deportment, who has made considerable progress in scientific
attainments, is desirous of qualifying himself to become a
teacher of the blind; and that in order to his comfort and
extensive usefulness, it is necessary that he should have the
services of a servant capable of reading and writing, which
object cannot be permanently secured otherwise than by the
education of a young slave named Randolph, the property of said
Henry Juett: and it further appearing that Robert Gray, the
father of. said Henry Juett, is willing to indemnify the public
against any possible injury which might be apprehended from the
misconduct of said slave:
1. Be it therefore enacted,
That it shall be lawful for the said Henry Juctt Gray, or any
friend for him, to employ from time to time any competent white
person or persons to teach the said slave Randolph reading and
writing, and for such white persons or persons so to teach said
slave without incurring any of the penalties prescribed by law
in such cases:
Provided, however, that
this act shall be of no force or effect until the said Robert
Gray, or some other responsible person, shall execute before the
county court of Rockingham county bond with two or more
sufficient sureties, payable to the sitting justices thereof,
and their successors, in a penalty to be fixed by said court,
but not less than double the value of said slave at mature age,
and conditioned for indemnifying the commonwealth and the
citizens thereof against any improper use of said slave of the
art of reading and writing, and for the sale and removal of said
slave by said Henry Juett Gray, or any future proprietor
thereof, beyond the limits of this commonwealth, in the event of
his conviction of any crime, unless the judgment of conviction
shall have the effect of preventing such sale or removal; which
bond may be sued on and prosecuted from time to time, in the
names of said justices, for the use of the commonwealth, or any
citizen thereof aggrieved, for the recovery of any damages which
may be sustained by reason of any breach of the condition
thereof:
And provided also, That to
give effect to this act, the county court of Rockingham county
shall be satisfied and cause it to be certified of record, that
the said slave is a boy of good moral character and correct
deportment: And provided moreover, That the general assembly
reserves to itself full power to alter, modify or repeal this
act at any time hereafter, and to require the sale and removal
of said slave beyond the limits of this commonwealth.
2. This act shall be in force
from the passing thereof.
Acts of Virginia, 1841-42, p. 164
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Sources:
Chapter VI. "The Instruction of Negroes." In Edgar W.
Knight..
A Documentary History of Education in the South before 1860. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1953
Chapter 10 "Up From Slavery: Educational and
other Rights of Negroes." In Edgar W. Knight and Clifton L. Hall. Readings
in American Educational History. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts,
Inc., 1951. Many states had laws prohibiting
the education of blacks; here black youngsters are turned away at the
school door |
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The Last Holiday: A Memoir
By Gil Scott Heron
Shortly after we republished The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, Gil started to tell me about The Last Holiday, an account he was writing of a multi-city tour that he ended up doing with Stevie Wonder in late 1980 and early 1981. Originally Bob Marley was meant to be playing the tour that Stevie Wonder had conceived as a way of trying to force legislation to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. At the time, Marley was dying of cancer, so Gil was asked to do the first six dates. He ended up doing all 41. And Dr King's birthday ended up becoming a national holiday ("The Last Holiday because America can't afford to have another national holiday"), but Gil always felt that Stevie never got the recognition he deserved and that his story needed to be told. The first chapters of this book were given to me in New York when Gil was living in the Chelsea Hotel. Among the pages was a chapter called Deadline that recounts the night they played Oakland, California, 8 December; it was also the night that John Lennon was murdered. Gil uses Lennon's violent end as a brilliant parallel to Dr King's assassination and as a biting commentary on the constraints that sometimes lead to newspapers getting things wrong. —Jamie Byng, Guardian |
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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